The Sandy Hook Shootings and Homeschooling

As it should, the tragedy of the Sandy Hook school shootings created an outpouring of emotion and sympathy from the public for the victims and their families. Unfortunately, as usual, the larger, social implications of the mass murders are being used by various groups to advance their own agendas: sensationalized, breaking news by competitive media groups who interviewed the children right after their horrible experiences; the political points being scored for and against gun control immediately after the event; calls for putting armed guards in the schools, and so on. I was wondering if it was even appropriate for me to write about the shootings today, but some things need rebuttal, particularly recent charges made about homeschooling in light of the shootings.

I agree that action needs to be taken to restrict access to weapons of mass killing and not just for the mentally ill; the vast majority of gun deaths are caused by “normal” people under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or uncontrolled emotion. But I want to move beyond the conventional boundaries of the gun debate and explore why when these horrific events happen people view homeschooling both as an alternative that provides safety for children and as an act of extreme individualism that destroys the social fabric of America.

An opinion article in the New York Times that appeared on Dec. 16, 2012, written by a philosophy professor, had what I thought was a good argument about how we delude ourselves that an armed society creates a civil society, however it bothers me how he uses homeschooling as his prime example of extreme individualism. Like many academics that are critical of homeschooling, this author makes an assumption about how all homeschoolers act and think based on little evidence:

After all, a population of privately armed citizens is one that is increasingly fragmented, and vulnerable as a result. Private gun ownership invites retreat into extreme individualism — I heard numerous calls for homeschooling in the wake of the Newtown shootings — and nourishes the illusion that I can be my own police, or military, as the case may be.

. . . Our gun culture promotes a fatal slide into extreme individualism. It fosters a society of atomistic individuals, isolated before power — and one another — and in the aftermath of shootings such as at Newtown, paralyzed with fear. That is not freedom, but quite its opposite.

Clearly this writer views homeschooling as embracing the “I got mine, you get yours” ethos, which is in homeschooling if you look for it: for instance, support groups that only support people of the right faith who will sign statements of faith, or the secular version where new members must reveal their educational and economic backgrounds before being considered for admittance. However, this ethos is well established in our school system, too: public schools determine access based on one’s zip code and private schools can deny admission based on religious beliefs or lack of income and that is perfectly okay with our society. “I got mine, you get yours” is embedded in the way we distribute education in America. Many, including me, feel that homeschooling is a way to bridge this divide rather than make it larger, by making education much more personal and local than it currently is.

I am an inclusive homeschooler: I am open to new people and new ideas coming into homeschooling and I think this is the best way for us to grow and become strong as a movement; too much inbreeding is always a bad thing. John Holt saw that homeschooling could merely mimic the school system, but he felt it was a risk well worth taking in light of the inbreeding he saw in schools of education. Holt had, as I do, faith and hope that if people spend time listening, playing, and working with children outside of schools, new opportunities will present themselves for finding, as Holt put it, “work worth doing and lives worth living, not just, or even a better education.” New combinations of schooling and living are certainly happening, slowly but surely, as homeschoolers move in and out of school and college, leverage online and other types of classes and mentoring, or go directly into work without conventional—or any—high school or college degrees. This is not an insignificant development in a world where more intensive and costly schooling is the default answer to all school problems. But all this gets lost when homeschooling is cast out of the conversation as extreme individualism and nothing else.

The biggest irony for me about homeschooling being viewed as extreme individualism is that the driving impetus for embracing homeschooling by Holt (Teach Your Own), Ivan Illich (Deschooling Society), and others is to create a convivial society, one where children aren’t segregated by age and law from other people, where knowledge and skills are openly shared. Another irony is how educationists claim that homeschooling is not concerned with supporting public institutions or commons. Illich (and other thinkers like him, such as E.F. Schumaker and John MacKnight) wrote deeply about our loss and need for public commons; the institutional model for learning often cited by Holt (and later by John Gatto) is the public library, not the public school. Open to all, no questions asked if you check out Dr. Seuss or the works of Einstein regardless of your age, young and old organizing or attending events together—the public library is a convivial model we can build upon. In addition, Holt provides many other ideas for places and opportunities that help people learn in his book Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things Better.

Holt viewed learning as both a personal and a social activity, and he saw homeschooling as a way to reintegrate those activities for learners. School atomizes them, emphasizing personal achievement and competition for grades over social activities, particularly free conversation and play in school. Now even recess is closely controlled, if the school has recess at all, and free-ranging conversation among children in school has always been viewed as taking away valuable instruction time from teachers. Since compulsory schooling was created in the United States children and teachers have written about how their love of learning and individuality are crushed by school: Holt, Kozol, Kohl, Dennison, Herndon, wrote a lot about this in the sixties and seventies; Kirsten Olsen’s Wounded By School makes this case for the twenty-first century. There is something that must be done in society and school for supporting individualism, though that discussion is curtailed when the discussion is polarized into you must attend school to contribute to society or else you are an extreme individualist.

The big picture I have is of a society that is open and generous towards its young, allowing them to have many different types of teachers, scopes, and sequences (to use the language of schools) for learning in or out of school. This inclusive vision of learning won’t prevent violence, but I think it will diminish it a lot by providing people who are alienated from their schools and social spheres with a fresh start in a different environment (not necessarily a different school!) or just different people in their lives.

Inclusive homeschooling and its larger goal of creating a convivial society get lost as educationists portray homeschoolers as extreme individualists and conventional schooling as the best place for children to learn and grow. Perhaps I’m in the minority among homeschoolers with these thoughts; some homeschoolers do want to be extreme individualists and that’s fine—you have the right and ability to do so in the United States, and sometimes circumstances make being an extreme individualist your only good option.

However, I want to continue finding and working with homeschoolers and others who want to build a society that provides numerous ways and supports for people to live and learn together, not just more secure, gated schools. Tragedies like Sandy Hook should make us think more broadly about what we can do about school violence, rather than make us circle the wagons more tightly and exclude homeschooling as a way to contribute to the solution.

John Taylor Gatto Update

John Gatto, author of Dumbing Us Down, The Underground History of American Education, and many other titles, suffered a stroke about 18 months ago that left him paralyzed on the left side of his body. He has been struggling through rehab and is slowly but surely getting better. Barb Lundgren, founder of the Rethinking Everything conference, has created a fundraising website to help with John Taylor Gatto’s ongoing medical and living expenses. When you use the Paypal donate button there your donation will go directly to John’s medical fund account.

The John Taylor Gatto Medical Fund

John and Janet weathered Hurricane Sandy in their Manhattan apartment, and John is showing significant improvement though he still has a long way to go.

John’s vocal chords were paralyzed but he has been working a lot at speaking and he is becoming much easier to understand. His mind is still quite active and he is thinking about life and education constantly. When my wife and I visited him in August he spent more than an hour with me talking about Ben Franklin’s ideas about the hand–mind connection for learning, as well as his thoughts on the political situation for homeschoolers. He is, of course, depressed by his physical condition but has lately found new determination to keep with his exercise/rehab regimen and he is now able to sit at a desk and write for about three hours, which gives him (and us!) great hope.

Barb Lundgren is the point of contact for people who want to help with some of John’s nonfinancial needs, too. In particular, the Gattos are seeking someone in the New York area who has a van that can accept a wheelchair so John can get to his dentist and doctor appointments in Manhattan; eventually, John would like to take a trip to see his garlic farm in upstate New York.

John and Janet also need help to negotiate the medical care system in New York City and if anyone is willing to help them as a sort of “medical advocate” it would be greatly appreciated. Please keep John and Janet in your hearts and minds as the holiday season begins.

Crazy Mom is Awesome!

Lenore Skenazy, author of Free Range Kids, is a one-woman agit-prop advocate for children’s independence. When she allowed her nine-year-old son to use the NY subway system by himself she was dubbed “Crazy Mom” by the press and she embraced it. By the way, I grew up in the Bronx in the 1960s and 1970s and my parents let me ride the subways when I was about ten; they were much more dangerous then, but my parents didn’t get called names by the press or other people for letting me do so. Times have certainly changed—and for the worse for children’s play and explorations of the world.

Now Skenazy is back with a new twist to make parents think about why it is a good thing to let children play, learn, and explore on their own. The New York Daily News writes about it, too: Crazy Mom Strikes Again!

Skenazy describes about her rationale for doing this on her blog: “Hi Folks: Welcome to the first after-school class that lets kids play outside, together, unsupervised — the greatest developmental boon a parent can give a child!”

Do you think Skenazy is a crazy mom or is she giving children a gift of time and space to self-actualize?

Why Bullies Are Reason Enough Against Traditional Schooling

This is a guest post by Jane Smith.

School bullying has become the latest issue to challenge the traditional schooling institution. More prevalent than any other topic related to school violence or crime in recent memory, bullying has taken center stage in media outlets as the problem that threatens the very safety of many vulnerable children. Most recently, school bullying has been discussed in the context of gay students being victimized by fellow classmates that harass them for their sexuality. The bullying behavior has no basis in logic or reason; it’s a sad example of a few students being selected and ridiculed for their perceived differences.

Bullying has figured so prominently in the national dialogue of late that the topic factored into the presidential campaign. Specifically, there have been allegations that presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney himself bullied a gay teen when he was in high school, allegedly attacking a classmate with scissors simply because of his haircut. It’s a sad portrait of an institution that hasn’t much changed from the times that the candidate was enrolled in high school, and only further makes the case that high schools do little to foster real education in students.

More and more schools—not just high schools, but middle and elementary schools as well—report cases of bullying. It’s an acknowledged “part of growing up” for less sympathetic parents and administrators who have long since been written off the behavior as just enough facet of the school experience. But what these willfully ignorant individuals don’t seem to realize is that bullying takes a real and permanent toll on its victims. Just the other day a gay teen in Iowa committed suicide as a result of excessive bullying in a trend that has become far too prevalent in our society. What has to happen beyond teen suicide for the systems that govern public and private education institutions to realize that more needs to be done?

The bullying issue draws to attention the fact that schools have virtually no control over the social norms and trends that occur there. One of the most common defenses for public/private schooling is that it subjects a child to the social world, but how can a parent accept that assertion in good conscience when children across the country are choosing to end their lives rather than go to class? Is this the environment where you want your child to learn social norms?

I feel like it’s not enough to tell children, particularly bullied children, to just keep their head down and bear with the terrors and anxieties of school until they graduate. Telling kids, “It gets better” is a brave campaign that lends hope to those lacking it, but that message implicitly tells children to ignore their aggressors while they’re in school because a better time will come later. Why does traditional schooling have to be an experience synonymous with misery and a just-grin-and-bear it mentality? I don’t think it does, but administrators, teachers, and parents will have to come up with some pretty radical reforms if they want to change it.

I think the school bullying issue is one that needs to be addressed in our country, and fast. It simply isn’t acceptable to let our children go to school knowing that there are bullies out there who will mercilessly harasses them for no good reason. This is among the many reasons why homeschooling seems like such a promising prospect for more and more families.

What do you think about the bullying epidemic in American schools? Do you think it makes a stronger argument for homeschooling?

Byline:

Jane Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. She writes about criminal background check for Backgroundcheck.org. Questions and comments can be sent to: janesmth161 @ gmail.com.

How School Colonizes Minds and Cultures

John Holt was deeply influenced by Ivan Illich and as I study both I am deeply struck by their vision of what education had become by the early 1970s and where they thought it was likely to go given its trajectory. Sadly, their worst predictions about schooling have come true, and the loopholes that allow individuals to learn and grow outside of institutionalized education are being closed in some countries and tightened in others in order to ensure that everyone receives the same professional treatment from school.

I’m also struck by how few homeschoolers, unschoolers, and alternative educators seem to grasp the insidious concept behind the seemingly innocuous statement that so horrified Holt and Illich, “The world is my classroom.” Indeed, I’ve seen tee shirts and homeschooling/unschooling books and articles that make this proclamation verbatim. As Holt wrote in his 1976 book Instead of Education: Ways to Help People do Things Better (reprinted in 2004 by Sentient Publishing):

I understand now, as I did not understand at all at first, why Illich reacted with such horror when I suggested that we should push the walls of the school building out further and further. This seemed to me a perfectly good metaphorical way to describe what I wanted to do in abolishing the distinction between learning and the rest of life. Only later did I see the danger that he saw almost immediately. Think again about the global schoolhouse, madhouse, prison. What are madhouses and prisons? They are compulsory treatment insitutions. They are places in which one group of people, A, do things to another group of people,B, without consent because still a third group, C, has decided that this is the right thing to do. Prisons, at least those dedicated to some notion of rehabilitation, which by the way a recent study shows that most prisoners hate and fear, are places in which one group says to another, “We are going to keep control of your life, keep on doing things to you until we think you measure up.” In the same way the doctors in the mental hospital say to the patients, “We are going to treat you, keep doing things to you until we think that you measure up, i.e., have recovered, are ‘sane’.” From here we see that school is exactly this kind of compulsory treatment institution. Society has decided that one group of people, the educators, shall be entitled to treat, to do all sorts of things to another group of people, the students, whether they want it or not, until the educators think that the students measure up, are ready to go out into the world and live. At no point is the student allowed to say, that’s enough. It’s for the educator to decide what’s enough.

And so a global schoolhouse would be a world in which certain people would have a constant and unlimited right to subject the rest of us to various sorts of tests, and if we did not measure up, to require that we submit ourselves to various sorts of treatment until we did. Seen in this light it is indeed a most horrifying prospect.

Illich, a priest, viewed the situation in a similar way but with a different lens:

Arnold Toynbee has pointed out that the decadence of a great culture is usually accompanied by the rise of a new World Church which extends hope to the domestic proletariat while serving the needs of a new warrior class. School seems eminently suited to be the World Church of our decaying culture . . .

. . . School serves as an effective creator and sustainer of social myth because of its structure as a ritual of graded promotions. Introduction into this gambling ritual is much more important than what or how something is taught. It is the game itself that schools, that gets into the blood and becomes a habit. A whole society is initiated into the Myth of Unending Consumption of services. This happens to the degree that token participation in the open-ended ritual is made compulsory and compulsive everywhere. School directs ritual rivalry into an international game which obliges competitors to blame the world’s ills on those who cannot or will not play. (From Deschooling: A Reader, edited by Ian Lister.)

Last year I heard of a movie, Schooling the World, that deals with these issues from today’s point of view but I had not seen it nor did I know much about it. This month my friends at the CooperativeCatalyst.org posted this excellent essay, Occupy Your Brain by Carol Black, about the colonizing effects of mass education and the global schoolhouse and I learned that she is the creator of the movie and website, Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden. Here is some of what she wrote:

Once learning is institutionalized under a central authority, both freedom for the individual and respect for the local are radically curtailed.  The child in a classroom generally finds herself in a situation where she may not move, speak, laugh, sing, eat, drink, read, think her own thoughts, or even  use the toilet without explicit permission from an authority figure.  Family and community are sidelined, their knowledge now seen as inferior to the school curriculum.  The teacher has control over the child, the school district has control over the teacher, the state has control over the district, and increasingly, systems of national standards and funding create national control over states. In what should be considered a chilling development, there are murmurings of the idea of creating global standards for education—in other words, the creation of a single centralized authority dictating what every child on the planet must learn.

The problem with this scenario should be obvious: who gets to decide what the world’s children will learn?  Who decides how and when and where they will learn it?  Who controls what’s on the test, or when it will be given, or how its results will be used?  And just as important, who decides what children will not learn?  The hierarchies of educational authority are theoretically justified by the superior “expertise” of those at the top of the institutional pyramid, which qualifies them to dictate these things to the rest of us.  But who gets to choose the experts?  And crucially, who profits from it?

I urge you to read this essay in its entirety and to consider arranging a showing of the film as a way to encourage people to challenge the idea that compulsory education is innately good and vital for all communities.

UPDATE:

In one of those great moments of synchronicity, I just learned that the film will have a free public screening at Harvard University on April 11 as part of a film series at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, from 5—7PM at Askwith Hall, 13 Appian Way, to be followed by a discussion with its director, Carol Black. If you're in the neighborhood, come and watch it with me!